The present invention relates to an apparatus for making bows and, more particularly, to a machine for forming and tying decorative bows, the operation of which is fully automatic.
Decorative bows of the type in which the ends of a piece of ribbon are folded over one another and across the center portion of the piece with the ends and center portion subsequential gathered or pinched and fastened with a wire tie are well known in the art. The wire tie is typically provided with extended ends by which the finished bow may be suitably attached to a package, decoration, or the like.
Decorative bows are typically folded and tied manually with certain relatively rudimentary fixtures often used to assist in holding the ribbon piece for folding and/or attaching the wire tie. U.S. Pat. No. 3,428,227 shows a fixture including a plurality of extendable and retractable rods around which a piece of ribbon is manually folded to hold the ribbon in tension until the center can be gathered and fastened. U.S. Pat. No. 4,714,182 discloses a jig for use with a ribbon wrapping machine in which a pair of bow holding rods diverge to cause a slack in the folded ribbon allowing the center to be gathered and tied. U.S. Pat. No. 2,335,053 shows a device for winding a continuous length of ribbon on a rotary mandrel in which sections of the ribbon are subsequentially gathered and manually tied to form a plurality of bows.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,409,190 discloses a machine for automatically folding and fastening simple bows by folding the opposite ends of a piece of ribbon sequentially to provide a bow preform utilizing a ribbon carriage moving in a linear path past stationary deflecting and folding fingers. The bow preform is not gathered, but rather fastened centrally with a button or rivet type fastener.